this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
216 points (95.4% liked)

Anarchism

2675 readers
40 users here now

Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.

Other anarchist comms

Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
216
How do people actually fall into the "Tankie" mindset? (anarchist.nexus)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by stinky@anarchist.nexus to c/anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
147 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying "99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in 'Tiny Man Square' [...] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda [...]," I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn't change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.

I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.

Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] F_State@midwest.social 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I find myself endless reminding people that there isn't always a "good guy". Sometimes it's bad guys vs bad guys or bad guys vs worse guys.

[โ€“] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

telling people they are bad people usually doesn't go over well with those people.

most everybody wants to be the hero and be on the side of good. very few people actively seek to be evil, but a lot of them are totally ok doing evil if they think it's for a greater good. mass murder and human suffering is totally justifiable if the goal of it is to advance your utopian beliefs, it's not so justifiable for its own sake.